


it has my face

by ordinaryquip (so_soft_boy)



Category: Video Blogging RPF, jacksepticeye
Genre: Changing POV, Dream Sequence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Only Shipping If You Squint, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-12 19:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18452774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/so_soft_boy/pseuds/ordinaryquip
Summary: Since getting his powers, Jackie hasn't been able to sleep without dreaming. After a particularly unnerving one, he goes to Marvin for help.





	it has my face

**Author's Note:**

> there's some sh ideation pretty much smack dab in the middle of this, and while i don't think it merits a higher rating or an archive warning, it is Definitely There  
> hope u enjoy!

This dream is familiar to you, but still brand new. Your dreams usually are. The choir of material sings to your touch: the concrete beneath your feet rumbles its bass as the bricks your hand is trailing across pluck their staccato melody. The city is alive, it talks to you in a language you can only understand here, where the smell of motor oil and ozone conveys an emotion you have never been able to put into words. The sky roils with the force of the unbroken storm, lit by silent lightning, rain held in neverending stasis in the clouds.

The storm will begin when the time is right. No sooner.

The city is a hive, both itself and each individual within it. Tonight, the city buzzes with a potential. It hums in the steel railing as you sweep up the steps, two, five, ten at a time. Your feet only touch the ground when you think about it, crouching and gathering the energy in your legs to propel yourself further upwards. You can feel your muscles moving beneath your skin, shifting restlessly, waiting for the leap. It unleashes all at once, and you rise up, up past cold steel and brittle concrete, rising to your place.

You are on the roof now. Of all the things, the roof is the most familiar. You are on the edge of it, without moving. The drop is sheer and long, comforting and frightening, as it always is. Sometimes it hurts you in its apathy, letting you drop to the ground without intervening in your path. Sometimes it frees you, cushioning you partway down so you can unfurl your wings and take to the air, leaving it behind. Sometimes it is not a drop at all, but a change in perspective, or location, a turning point from one place to another.

Always, it is unpredictable.

As you fall into it, it rises towards you, changing, stopping barely inches away from your face.  You stare into the abyss, and it ripples, revealing its reflections, and you -

See yourself. See a face that is not yours. See the face that belongs to you right now, but only for the moment. You notice the figure behind -

Him -

You -

Who?

You who are not you turn to look, watching through eyes that are not yours, set in a face you have never seen. You feel a smile on the mouth that does not belong to you. It is so excited to see this being with it's back turned to you, who is -

Short, unassuming, unimposing, a stranger you would never notice -

Pitch black, not an absence of light but darkness in the form of a man, a force personified -

The most important person in the world, why have you been apart for -

You need to go to them. They need you. You are repulsed, out of sync, afraid of how the intimate has become the unknown. You can't remember the things that you need to know; it is tearing you apart. You don't even know what it is that you forgot. Without moving, you reach out, your hand gripping -

Their -

No one’s -

A facsimile of a -

Shoulder, and you are powerless to stop the turning of its head, as slow and inexorable as continental drift. You must bear witness to that which you are unprepared to see. An acrid smell floods your senses, and you know it is the smell of gunpowder, your ears still ring with the echo of the shot, but you have never fired a gun in your life. You see -

the stranger's -

your friend's -

the _wrong_ -

face in profile, then in full, but you cannot understand what you're seeing.

His face is twisted with an emotion you have never dared express. His eyes are sharper, more alert than yours have ever been. He wants -

blood -

power -

bones - loyalty -

yourh _e_ artangeradorationfeareyesbloodbonepowereyeslo _y_ altyyoursoulyour _e_ yesyoureyesyou -

He is wearing your face.

He is you, but you are no longer him.

  


Jackie wakes up in a cold sweat, gasping for air. Something about that was important, his dreams are never just dreams anymore - but the details are already slipping away. He can only just remember the city, and an overwhelming feeling of dread.

In a matter of seconds, he's out of bed and in front of Marvin's door. His hand is almost on the doorknob before he stops himself. It's late. Very late. Late enough to almost be early, judging by the scraps of pre-dawn light starting to creep in through the window.

It'll be morning soon enough. He can handle this alone.

"You can come in. I'm awake."

Jackie starts, then slumps in relief as he opens the door. The little bit of light catches on Marvin's eyes, stark blue stars in the empty galaxy of his dark room. It had startled Jackie the first time he saw it, now it’s a welcome comfort.

"Sorry for waking you up."

"Don't worry, it wasn't your fault." Marvin gestures for Jackie to come sit, and he shuffles carefully over, shoving clothing out of the way with his feet before he trips over them. As soon as he sits down on the edge of the bed, Marvin grabs him in a hug and drags him to lay against the absolute mountain of pillows he sleeps with.

"Insomnia again?" Jackie asks as Marvin pulls the blankets over them both.

"My running theory is that I'm allergic to regular sleep cycles."

"Sleep is for -" Jackie starts, and interrupts himself with a yawn. "-for the weak."

"Sure. Why are _you_ up so late?"

"You know, a real hero never sleeps."

"Say that again when you nod off mid patrol."

"Justice is always vigilant."

"Is your neck bothering you?"

Jackie freezes. His hand had drifted to his throat without any thought, tracing over the fresh scar there. He keeps catching himself doing it, and keeps telling himself that it's just a new nervous tic he's picked up. It would make sense, he has been through a lot lately.

He also knows it isn't the truth.

A horrible urge pulses under his fingertips, a restrained impulse to scratch and rip and tear until his new powers - _unknown, volatile, dangerous_ \- come flooding out of him. He can hardly hold a knife anymore, too preoccupied with resisting the temptation to slit his throat, remind his arms what the sting of failure feels like, plunge it into his stomach up to the hilt. It gnaws at him like hunger, a gruesome need to reopen every scar, new and old, until some sick thirst is slaked and his blood drips into the shape of answers to questions he doesn't know how to ask.

He has lost a memory too important to be simply forgotten.

"Jackie. Jackie. _A stóirín_ \- It's okay. I've got you, Jackie."

They're sitting up in bed now, Marvin cradling Jackie close to his chest, rubbing small circles onto his back. There's a box of tissues in front of him now, and Jackie grabs a handful to smash against his face. He's not sure when he started crying, or how much time has passed, lost in his head in visions of self mutilation that have never been quite THIS bad before.

"Stay with me Jackie, it's okay. I'm right here. You're safe."

Marvin keeps going, whispering disjointed words of comfort until Jackie is still and calm again, and the heavy silence of night gradually falls back over them.

"Do you want me to help you fall asleep?" Marvin asks. Jackie only shrugs in response, so he continues, "I can keep you from having more dreams. It's not as restful as natural sleep, but it's something."

"Honestly, anything at sounds better than what I'm getting at this point."

"You want to go back to your room?"

"Yeah, just give me a second."

A second stretches out, gathering tension, until Marvin huffs and ruffles Jackie's hair with feigned annoyance.

"It's okay if you want to sleep here."

Jackie grins sheepishly. "For sure?"

"Absolutely. Get comfy, you sleep deprived asshole."

That makes him laugh and relax a little. "Don't let me sleep too late, I don't wanna become nocturnal like you."

"I'll wake you up while the sun's still out, morning bird. Just close your eyes."

"It's early bird," Jackie corrects him as he settles back into a comfortable place among the pillows, closing his eyes. Marvin's hands hover above him for a moment, casting a sheet of dark green light over him like a blanket. There is the fleeting feeling of being in a deep glade, the softness of a bed of moss under a canopy of ferns, and then Jackie is asleep, breathing deep and even.

Marvin gets out of bed carefully, and paces through their apartment. Secrecy wards, magic keeping them hidden that anything that would want to find them, are torn down and replaced. He made the best protective wards he could when he moves in, now he copies several of them and puts them up in new places. It can’t hurt to double up for now, but he’s already thinking about how to make more powerful ones. He checks his alarm spells, to make sure he didn't miss any of them being tripped, then cleans the place with every method he knows how to use. The fact that the whole endeavor doesn't turn up any evidence of anything getting in isn't reassuring.

The sun is well  risen by the time he checks on Jackie, who has managed to throw half of the blankets onto the floor in his sleep. Marvin tucks him in again and smooths back his hair, taking a moment to study him in the early morning light. Even deep in dreamless sleep, Jackie looks tired. He’s been pushing himself to master his new powers, determined that they came to him for a reason, that he’s _meant_ to help people.

"Don't worry," Marvin whispers, as much to himself as to the sleeping hero. "I'll figure out what's going on."

  


You are not the same, but you are wearing the face that is not your own. The same face he looked through just moments ago, at the form that you are supposed to be in. This one is borrowed, hanging loosely over your real shape and shielding you, for now.

Your true form is too weak now.

Borrowing faces is easy. Faces are interchangeable. He and you are almost interchangeable, or at least, you should be.

Something went terribly wrong.

You are not the same, but you cannot tell where you end and he begins, bleeding together like washed out paint, spread too thin. That is not how it should be. You are alone. You are apart. He is shouldering a burden you should be bearing together; the distance is causing you both to decay. He took what was freely given, and then more. He embraced you and tore away, leaving you with more bits of him than yourself, and him the same. That brief, painful contact has proved more destructive in its absence than its presence.

You are the same, mirror images of the same rage, the same drive, the same heart. Your pieces are broken and scattered, hiding in shells that creak under the strain. You need to be whole again.

You are a part.

You are alone.

You are _angry_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> its been almost two years since i've posted any of my writing, so this feels pretty cool. if you want to see more stuff about the universe this is set in, check out http://ordinaryquip.tumblr.com/tagged/antihedron although by this point some of the stuff in that tag is no longer canon. whoops!!!!!!


End file.
